


In the Dark as One

by reine_des_corbeaux



Series: Returning Season [2]
Category: 14th Century CE RPF, Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error - Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie
Genre: Dubious Consent, Hate Sex, Heresy, M/M, PWP, Period Typical Attitudes, Rivalry, Rough Sex, Sheep, Yuleporn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:48:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21952468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reine_des_corbeaux/pseuds/reine_des_corbeaux
Summary: "I love Guillaume more than any of my brothers; although I have four brothers in the flesh. For those who are of the faith practise concord in everything. So they are more one another's brothers than those born of the same father and mother in the flesh: such brothers are always quarrelling with one another! And I shall never let Guillaume down: for all that we possess we pool, half and half."- Pierre Maury, quoted in the Fournier Register.Pierre Maury and Guillaume Bélibaste quarrel over sheep. It goes further than that.
Relationships: Pierre Maury/Guillaume Bélibaste
Series: Returning Season [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1592494
Comments: 6
Kudos: 10
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	In the Dark as One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lurknomoar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lurknomoar/gifts).



Sometime in the night, it starts to rain, while Bélibaste and Pierre drink at the table in Pierre’s _cabane_ , eating their suppers, talking of the days to come and the things to be done. 

“Where are the others?” Bélibaste asks. 

“Out with their herds. Some new men this year, and it’s their first time summering up here. They haven’t yet really understood that there’s no danger of wolves in the high pastures and that the sheep can mind themselves for an hour.” 

“Better that than leaving them alone for days on end and letting them trample the local fields, isn’t it?” 

Pierre nods. 

“They’re good sorts. One’s a bit too—” he waves his hands— “you know. Not our sort.” 

Bélibaste nods in turn. 

“He’d turn a goodman out in the rain?” 

“That he would. If he knew I was entertaining a _parfait_ in this _cabane_ , well, he’d be furious.” 

“And he wouldn’t be able to do a thing. You’re _chef de cabane,_ not some humble little man with nothing to show for your labours but the clothes on your back. You have plenty of sheep.” 

“No thanks to you,” Pierre blurts out. 

He loves Bélibaste like a brother, like more than a brother, but there are things that a shepherd cannot forgive. It still sits raw with him that Bélibaste could cheat him, who loves him, out of sheep and profits, and still expect him to love him. But Pierre does, because he likes to think of himself as a good Christian and he must love his neighbor and respect goodmen. 

“I got those sheep from you fairly, Pierre Maury,” Bélibaste insists. “You accuse me of thievery?” 

“Only of cheating me out of my livelihood, when I have a sister to support and a _cabane_ to run. That’s no goodman’s behavior, brother.” 

“And yours isn’t proper for a believer.” 

That is too far for Pierre, and something in him explodes into furious light. 

“I’m a good Christian, as well you know. Would a worse man have turned you away from his table, or given you wine and bread?” 

“I know what you are, Maury. I know you’re a lustful man, a proud man, a violent man. I know your passions, and I know your secret sins.” 

“And they’re sins you’ve shared, friend. They’re sins you’ve shared.” 

So caught in their combat of words, Bélibaste and Pierre barely notice that they’re inching closer to each other, face to face, lips almost touching. And Pierre, impulsive in his anger and his pride, leans forward and kisses Bélibaste directly on the lips. 

He has some idea that this is a kiss of peace, that he is following the precepts of the goodmen, but Bélibaste appears to have ideas to the contrary, because this is not the first time such things have happened, nor is it the first time Pierre has initiated contact. Bélibaste’s winey mouth is rough upon Pierre’s and his lips are dry, but his tongue is practiced. They have done such things many times before, 

They’re young, they’re unmarried, they live with their families or their sheep, and in this moment, they despise each other. Finding each other intolerable is a substitute for lust, fury a fitting replacement for desire. Bélibaste’s tongue finds its way into Pierre’s mouth, twining and searching to steal his breath away. When they pull apart, Bélibaste leaves saliva on his face. 

“You smell like a sheep, Maury,” he hisses. 

Pierre bites back a response, something about how everyone in Montaillou, and probably everyone in the Pyrenées, smells like sheep. They’re shepherds. They probably come out of the womb smelling of sheep. 

“Better a sheep than a cheat,” he says instead, and pulls Bélibaste towards his bed. 

Sitting on the thin pallet, Pierre smells the mouldering straw and the rank odor of sheep all around him. Far away, in the nighttime pasture, he hears the sheep bleating in contentment or alarm, and thinks that perhaps he should go check on them, as soon as this is done, as soon as he’s cleaned up after his meal. The other shepherds will return, as they always do, but until they do, there is time to sate the lusts of the body and the violence of the soul. Pierre reaches down, and grasps Bélibaste’s manhood through his hose, gives it an experimental squeeze. It’s both a taunt and an invitation. 

After that, things move quickly in a flail of legs and bodies, half wrestling, half pushing at each other, half drawing each other together. At some point, Bélibaste divests himself of his trousers. At some point not long after that, he shoves his fingers into Pierre’s mouth. Pierre sucks on them because he has done this many times before, swirls his tongue around the familiar calloused fingers, rough from years of hard work. They taste of salt and sheep and thin mountain earth. 

Bélibaste pulls away, grunting, and starts to press his weight across Pierre, grabbing at his legs for better purchase. He shoves fingers into Pierre, not politely, not with any requests for access, but Pierre lets him do it. He thinks about clawing at Bélibaste, and he thinks about kissing him again, and the desire for violence fights with the lust, reeling through his body like a drunken dance. 

Pierre doesn’t like to think about how he’s sinning now, or how much he wishes Bélibaste would get on with it. There’s wrath here, and lust, and greed, all warped and wrapped together in a braid as tight as good rope. And because he cannot fathom his feelings, Pierre reaches up to kiss Bélibaste again. Bélibaste grunts and pushes another finger into Pierre. 

It’s a full, strange feeling, being stuffed with Bélibaste’s fingers. The first time it happened, Pierre screamed with the unfamiliar pain of it, and another shepherd came running, thinking he’d been truly hurt. But now, they are alone, their only company the sounds of rain and sheep from outside. 

Perhaps Belibaste has had enough of preparing Pierre with his fingers, for he settles between his legs at last, and lifts a leg up and over his shoulder. 

“Teach you to be impertinent,” he grunts, and Pierre sees arousal writ large across his face. “Teach you to question those who knows better.” 

“Such are the rewards for those who cheat honest men out of sheep,” Pierre taunts. “You get your sheep, and you get to fuck the honest man. What a good reward! What seemly behavior for a goodman!” 

That appears to be what it takes to get Bélibaste to really fuck him properly. With an angry grunt, he shoves his cock inside. Pierre gasps at the sensation. It hurts, and instinctively, he tries to twist away. But Bélibaste pins him fast to the pallet, and thrusts into him with purpose and drive. 

He’s not gentle, but then, he’s never gentle, and even the one time Pierre mounted him and took the active role, Bélibaste still left marks on Pierre’s body. He likes to be in charge in all things, Pierre has learned. Perhaps he thinks that, baptized into the true faith as he is, the world owes him all, and ought to deny him nothing. 

Bélibaste changes his speed, pulling Pierre with him in his search for his own pleasure. Pierre feels his cock rise against his stomach, despite his disgraceful position, despite the roughness of Bélibaste’s motion and the silence of Bélibaste’s tongue. 

“Guillaume,” he gasps out, “slow down!” 

Bélibaste doesn’t listen. He never does. He’ll stop if Pierre tells him to, but he’ll never slow himself down. Important men don’t need to, he’s said to Pierre. Goodmen know what’s best for all. And he’s told Pierre that this is a carnal sin, and not a wrathful one, and thus, it’s no different than a husband lying with a wife. All sins, after all, are equal in their sinfulness. The body is a curse. But in this moment, full and contorted, Pierre can only think the true curse of the body is that pleasure and pain exist so concurrently within it. With every touch, Bélibaste is tearing Pierre apart, even as he brings them close together. 

He continues to thrust into Pierre, hits the place in Pierre that sends surges of pleasure radiating down his spin, and Pierre cries out. It’s a swift, sharp sound, and he hopes it doesn’t draw his brother-shepherds back to the _cabane_ in alarm. That seems to draw Bélibaste back to himself, or perhaps out of himself, for his rhythm becomes more erratic, and at last, he spends himself within Pierre. 

There’s a strange sensation as Bélibaste pulls himself away and reaches down at last to touch Pierre. His hands are gentle on Pierre’s cock as he grasps it firmly, rubbing and stroking until, at last, Pierre comes into his hand. He’s insensate with pleasure, and moans, long and low, all the while. 

“You’re a fool and a sinner, Pierre Maury,” Bélibaste says at last. “Pray for God’s mercy and listen to your betters.” 

His voice is strained with the aftershocks of sex, and Pierre feels a stab of pity warring with the rest of his shattered emotions. He wants to move, to quarrel, to go tend to his sheep, but he can only lie on the pallet, boneless and fucked-out, unable to feel more than the emptiness and lack of Bélibaste’s flesh against his. 

“If I’m to pray, then you ought to pray as well, Guillaume,” he says at last. “After all, have we not sinned together in the same manner?” 

Bélibaste’s eyes narrow. 

“Even after a good fucking, you can’t shut up, can you?” 

“I advise all my brothers,” Pierre says. “And you, certainly, as the brother of faith that I love best of all, deserve all my advice.” 

A sheep bleats out in the pasture. Bélibaste grunts. It’s already as if this has never happened. They will go back to their day-to-day quarrels and crises of sheep and religion and trade, and they will not think of these nights in deserted _cabanes_. 

“Watch your mouth,” Bélibaste says at last. 

Pierre already feels reckless. A thousand witty words blossom on his tongue, ready to be spoken aloud. He thinks for a moment of sayings about sheep thieves and thieving priests, picks the best one, and opens his mouth. 

**Author's Note:**

> A few notes on the history here (and on other things): I've tried not to use the name "Cathar" here- we don't really know how believers would have referred to themselves other than as the "goodmen." Likewise, Pierre thinks himself as a Christian at a couple of points- there's a good deal of interesting historiographical debate over what exactly the Cathars even were, but I've chosen to go with the "Christian heretical movement with some unique theology of its own" hypothesis here, rather than the "separate religion entirely" or "the Inquisition exaggerated/invented nearly everything and it's just a rural reformist view of medieval Christianity" one. So Pierre thinks of himself as a good Christian, because the Catholic Christians are the bad Christians in his worldview. Draw what conclusions from that you will. 
> 
> I hope there's enough sheep in here for you! I cannot guarantee accuracy in sheep-related subjects (or, for that matter, in all historical references), but I tried my best to get them into the fic. 
> 
> Title is from 'Returning Season' by W.S. Merwin (incidentally, from the line about sheep).


End file.
